---
type: Video
title: "$50 Sri Lankan Beef Wellington 🇱🇰"
description: A three-course fusion dinner in Colombo built on beef loin cooked in Sri Lankan curry and wrapped in puff pastry — plus where arrack actually comes from, and a stupa climbed for the whole city at sunset.
tags: [sri-lanka, colombo, food, fine-dining, arrack, stupa, viewpoints, markets]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T17:10:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmBWRs9rDQY
video_id: qmBWRs9rDQY
upload_date: 2022-03-07
duration: 2043
---

# $50 Sri Lankan Beef Wellington 🇱🇰

A second day in [Colombo](/places/colombo.md) with [Ali](/people/ali.md), which
is really two things: a stupa climbed at sunset for the view over the whole city,
and the best meal of the trip.

*Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles. Harry gives the sunglasses
seller an on-camera plug with directions to his stall, so that stall is not named
here. The restaurant is named: no link, no code, nothing given, and he paid the
bill and tipped on top.*

## Sunglasses, again

Replacing the pair the sea took two days earlier. A street seller with, in
Harry's words, more energy than anyone should have that early: **asked 5,000,
dropped to a stated "Sri Lanka price" of 2,000, sold at 1,800 — about $9.**
Counterfeit and better made than the $3 pair. He puts the price to the comments
rather than claiming he did well.

## The stupa, and the view

A very large Buddhist stupa in the **port area**, climbed at sunset. The gate is
locked and they are told they may go over it, and told firmly not to cross a
particular bridge at the top.

From the top, effectively the whole city: the coastline, the container port, the
naval and fishing harbours, the central business district and its tower,
construction, and — visible in the distance — the **Red Mosque** he was at the
day before.

Two asides from up there:

- **He likes ports**, and says why: on his figure, **70–80% of what we consume
  arrives by cargo ship** *(from video – unverified)*.
- **Ali is afraid of heights** and is up it anyway; Harry notes the group has spent
  the trip pushing him into exactly this.

**And the tip he states from the top, which is the useful part of the video**:
arriving in a city you know nothing about, do one of two things — **walk it, or
find a tuk-tuk driver and let him take you round.** He had done no research on
Colombo at all, and after one day of the second option feels he knows it. See
[walk the city](/tips/walk-the-city.md).

## The bread man

A snack van that plays a loud tune as it goes so you know to flag it down. A
doughnut costs 100 rupees. Harry notes on camera that he isn't supposed to buy
street food, buys it anyway, and reports it as very sweet and very good.

## Dinner

By 8pm he has eaten one apple all day — filming, then working — and says he and
Ali have accidentally fasted.

The restaurant is a fusion place whose premise is European technique with Sri
Lankan spicing, and Harry lets the staff order for him.

**Starters**

- **Kochchi chicken skewers** — chicken thigh marinated in Sri Lankan green
  chilli, which he compares to a nutty satay.
- **Devilled chicken**, crisp-fried in a sweet-and-sour-style spiced sauce, and
  hotter than the skewers. He rates it the best chicken he has had in the country.
- Served with a very thin oily flatbread, a curry sauce, pickled onion and carrot,
  and something green he takes for horseradish or wasabi.

**Mains**

- **The beef Wellington**, and the construction is the point: **beef loin cooked
  in a traditional Sri Lankan beef curry**, mushroom with sweet Sri Lankan spices,
  wrapped in puff pastry and baked. Served with a black beef curry sauce, tempered
  potatoes and long beans. His description of eating it: it starts as an ordinary
  beef Wellington and then the curry arrives underneath it.
- **A slider** with **brinjal moju** — aubergine — and cheddar.

**Dessert: baked curd**, which he had never met. **Buffalo-milk curd with
condensed milk and fresh cream, oven-steamed**, served with **kithul palm
treacle** and nougat. He compares the texture to a firm jelly and the taste to
tiramisu.

**About 10,000 rupees — just over $50** — for two starters, two mains, four
drinks and a dessert, plus a tip. He calls it not cheap, entirely fair for the
quality and the district, and rates the food **9 out of 10**, noting he doesn't
give tens.

## Where arrack comes from

The most substantial thing anyone tells him in Colombo, from the restaurant:

- **Sap is tapped from the kithul palm** — a relative of the coconut palm.
- **Reduced, it is the treacle** served with the dessert.
- **Fermented, it is toddy**, an alcoholic drink of **4–6%**.
- **Distilled, toddy becomes arrack.**
- The same process runs across the tropical palm-growing countries — Sri Lanka,
  India, Indonesia and Java are the ones named.

## Key moments

- `[02:53]` 1,800 for the sunglasses.
- `[06:57]` The bread man, and a 100-rupee doughnut.
- `[08:31]` The climb begins.
- `[10:32]` Panoramic Colombo, and the argument for ports.
- `[12:03]` Walk it, or find a tuk-tuk: his rule for a new city.
- `[13:35]` One apple, at eight o'clock.
- `[17:12]` The two starters.
- `[22:49]` The Wellington explained by the person who made it.
- `[28:32]` Baked curd, kithul treacle.
- `[31:14]` Sap to toddy to arrack.
- `[32:47]` Just over 10,000 rupees, and 9 out of 10.

## Extracted pages

- [Sri Lanka](/countries/sri-lanka.md)
- [Colombo](/places/colombo.md)
- [Ali](/people/ali.md)
- [Walk the city](/tips/walk-the-city.md)